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Thursday, September 20, 2012

Western Operations in Afghanistan

US/NATO forces had their big toy games in Afghanistan - at the cost of Afghans.
Of course Afghans had little bit help from rest of their brothers.
Now that west is going out one question remains - did they win or did they not?
They do not know the answer.
In fact no one is even asking the question.
If killing Osama Bin laden was the purpose then that that indeed was accomplished but that can not be tagged as a victory.
If killing an unspecified number of able bodied male Afghans is concerned then that too has been accomplished but no one will give a certificate of victory on that. In fact soon this specter will return to haunt the US and UK society.
We do have reports from US about the presence of this spook. Former US soldiers are killing themselves in increasing numbers. This is not a good sign of victory - if there has been one.
As far as the world opinion is concerned then that can be considered as a diplomatic victory if the world opinion was turning in favour of America. This we already knew that the world overwhelming wanted end to Afghanistan and Iraq conflicts and that is why election of Obama has a sort of global blessing.
But we know about Obama turning into a veritable Al Capone, as one commentator put it, personally supervising the kill list of the day. The Kosher reason for that action was to eliminate any spurious killing but the President forgot one very crucial ingredient - dilution of responsibility by distribution of action between executive, legislature and the armed forces.

In any case this only further complicates the answer to the original question.

Since we do not know who won in Afghanistan one can safely conclude that no one should be announcing the celebrations.

It is in this context that we again come to the conclusion that UK should not be making a push to rehabilitate Rushdie.

Marhaba/Khushamadeed/Welcome

Dear visitor,If you recognize the following pictures then you are at home. If not then you are welcome as a guest. Here you'll find some tidbits related to some thing called Aligarh Movement with a tilt towards issues related to Science in Islamic context.